The Table
A Prose Poem by Naomi Ward
Seven years old, a child, in my best shirt,
I sat at a table in our finished basement,
set for a crowd.
My mother had spent the days before hanging streamers,
taping balloons to the paneled walls,
smoothing the paper tablecloth with her palms.
She wanted that room to shine for me.
The cake waited. The balloons leaned in the corner.
Every chair stayed empty.
I watched the stairs.
I watched the clock.
The candles stood unlit, because lighting them meant admitting the wait was over.
An hour passed. Then another.
The stairs stayed silent. The doorbell stayed quiet.
My father, a hard man and a loving one,
turned his face toward the wall
and wiped his eyes where he thought I could not see.
I saw. I kept my own eyes dry and my hands folded.
The child everyone called a boy
already knew she was a girl,
a girl with no friends,
and she learned how silence tastes.
Before that, my birthdays hid inside Thanksgiving,
shared with the whole family and the long table.
This was the first party made only for me.
It was not my first, but it was my last.
I carried one rule out of that basement:
a birthday is a door that stays shut.
Every candle after that came with dread.
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As an adult everyone called a man, and later as the woman I am,
I still feared the empty chairs,
so I kept my birthdays small and quiet
and let the years pass behind a closed door.
Tonight I dream a different ending.
The same basement. The same streamers my mother hung.
The same cake. The same best shirt.
I pull out the chair at the head of the table and sit beside the child I was.
Footsteps thunder down the stairs.
A crowd pours in, loud, late, and glad,
arms full of gifts wrapped badly and with love.
They came for me.
They always wanted me.
My mother stands at the bottom step,
her decorations glowing, her face wide open with joy.
My father’s huge smile lights the whole room,
happy tears running down his face
where everyone can see them.
Someone lights the candles.
My face glows above the flames,
gap-toothed, soft, completely mine.
The girl they called a boy, the woman she became,
the Black child who knew her own light,
all of us sit together,
and every chair holds someone who came.
I cut the first slice and set it in front of her.
Make your wish, baby.
This is a dream, and it is also a promise
that I will sit with that child at every birthday that remains.
Sixty years late, I am here,
and I stay until the last candle burns down.
© 2026 Naomi Ward
